


There's Nothing Like Summer in the City

by MonPetitParselmouth



Series: Endless Cycle of Vengeance [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Coming Out, Dolley deserves better, Gen, James has a seriously messed-up worldview, M/M, Pyromania, Secret Identity Fail, Sort Of, Thomas is being creepy and needs to stop, oh well, the timeline is a bit screwed up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-06 18:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14062968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonPetitParselmouth/pseuds/MonPetitParselmouth
Summary: “Does, ah, this”—Adrienne gestured around herself to indicate the supers’ battle— “happen often?”“Yeah, I mean like, traffic jam, broken stoplight, supervillain attack—same difference, really.”(Or, in which summer begins, Dolley and Adrienne make appearances, and James has The Revelation.)





	There's Nothing Like Summer in the City

**Author's Note:**

> Set (mostly) around two weeks after the previous installment.

_Chat: where we plan the destruction of nyc_

 

arsonist: i am b o r e d

 

Cataclysm: I have said it once and i will say it again: we don't care

 

the marquis: shhhhh it is the middle of class mes amies

 

the marquis: i am leaving this chat add me back in later

 

arsonist: u cant just leave this chat

 

the marquis: I can and will 

 

the marquis: goodbye

 

_the marquis has left the chat_

 

arsonist: YES LEAVE AND DIE A PAINFUL DEATH

 

Wraith: Guys, please stop. I’m trying to listen to my teacher. 

 

Cataclysm: u know what, I’m bored too, let’s destroy something

 

arsonist: oh so it doesn't matter if I'm bored but it matters if you are?

 

Cataclysm: yeah

 

Cataclysm: @arsonist I can c u glaring at me

 

Wraith: You two are in the same class right now? Lord have mercy. 

 

arsonist: so I was thinking 

 

Wraith: That’s new. 

 

Cataclysm: get #rekt

 

arsonist: as i was SAYING before i was so RUDELY interrupted, i was thinking

 

arsonist: @Cataclysm I’m bored, ur bored, what if we get out of school 

 

Wraith: School ends in literally two days. 

 

arsonist: AHEM 

 

arsonist: what if, hypothetically, i set the roof on fire

 

arsonist: just hypothetically of course

 

arsonist: then the teacher would let us out and i could go attack times square like I've been planning to do

 

Cataclysm: Thomas no

 

arsonist: thomas yes

 

Wraith: DO NOT SET THE ROOF ON FIRE!

 

Cataclysm: dang u know its bad when Aaron burr uses all-caps

 

Wraith: I REPEAT: DO NOT SET THE ROOF ON FIRE!

 

arsonist: too late

 

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

New York Post @nypost

Fire at Manhattan Liberty School of the Sciences suspected to be set by #Arsonist

 

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

_explosion guy texted you on Wednesday at 2:13 pm_

 

explosion guy: i don’t understand how its physically possible for them to know that

 

maria: lol welcome to the 21st century

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

James was hardly stupid, no matter what his sister Nelly said. He was just quiet. He sat back and watched and listened and noticed all the details, and nobody noticed _him_. 

It was in no way a mystery that his new acquaintance—dare he say friend— Thomas, was . . . not normal. What _was_ a mystery, however, was exactly what he was. The fact that the their spontaneous coffee date paralleled with the day of the Marquis’ first attack was hardly anything to look at funnily. Thomas leaving just as it occurred was a peculiar coincidence at most. But there was so much more than that. 

James had received a string of apologies from Thomas after he was abandoned at the coffee shop on that day a couple of weeks ago. He’d rapidly assured him—again—that it was okay, and they’d planned to hang out a few days later. As they got better acquainted, scheduling meeting after meeting, James began to notice odd little quirks surrounding him. 

One of these was his ability to arrive places frighteningly quickly, although James got used to this one, writing it off as him being a fast walker, or abnormally apt at flagging taxies. Another was his obsession with magenta, but that was one of those things any mildly strange person might like. The worrying ones were his tendency to light stuff on fire and his fascination with mixing together dangerous and unstable chemicals. 

What really made James suspicious, though, was when what Thomas _said_ didn’t match up with what he _did_. 

“I have work, so I’ll meet you at seven,” Thomas said one day over the phone after school. James had agreed, and around seven, after hastily snapping a few pictures of the Icarus-Arsonist battle that had followed, they’d met up. But another time, Thomas had mentioned having work in the _evenings_. 

(James wasn’t clear on what exactly Thomas did. It probably had something to do with explosions, though, if the number of times he’d rushed into James’ apartment with his eyebrows half burnt off said anything. )

“Sorry I’m late, traffic was bad,” was Thomas’ excuse at some point. _When_ isn’t _traffic bad here?_ had been James’ initial reaction, but it was quickly followed by _Doesn’t he live next door to this café?_

And on top of all that, Thomas frequently hid his phone screen from James when he received texts. At first James thought that he was just private—which made sense, since it was his personal messages—but he seemed to have no qualms about showing James photos of experiments that his aunt had sent him, or memes from some friend of his named Maria that James had met once, briefly. 

It took a while, but James eventually deduced that Thomas showed him anything that came from iMessages with the vibration he’d set it on, but didn’t show him when his phone chimed like a bell, announcing a message from a group chat. 

It all added up into _something_ weird, but he couldn’t seem to figure it out. 

After a night of restless sleep and paranormal dreams, James jolted awake and it came to him. 

Thomas was a supervillain. 

Several sentences pounded their way through James' head, one after the other.  _How? What?_ made up the majority of them, but among the others were  _Why didn't he tell me?,_   _How can it be Thomas?,_ and  _I've been trying to figure out their identities for two years, and I didn't figure this out?_

Once the shock faded away, it all made sense. The ridiculous work and sleep schedule, the minor injuries and burns, the disheveled state he sometimes showed up in, the quaint leer that lingered around the corners of his mouth whenever James brought up supers in general. 

The question was, which one?

The Arsonist came to mind first, of course, because of their shared color scheme and (possible) teleportation. However, James found himself second-guessing. Thomas _did_ look a lot like the Marquis, too, and he _was_ kind of obsessed with France.

He wasn't even angry or afraid, not really. It was still Thomas, after all, and if their conversations got a little bit more awkward after James' revelation, well, all he could do was hope Thomas wouldn't notice. He decided he wouldn't talk to him about it, wouldn't ask which one he was, wouldn't bring up the subject at all, unless Thomas did first. He didn't want to jeopardize their friendship.

In the end, one event convinced James to confront Thomas with his suspicions.

They were hanging out at his aunt’s place, which, apparently, was where he lived, too. James had long since decided to never ask about what had happened with the rest of his family. Thomas had disappeared into his room for a couple of minutes, and James noticed a flash of color in his school bag. 

There was something stuffed under the wrinkled-up papers and disorganized binders. James had a sinking suspicion he knew what it was. Peering closer, his suspicions were proved correct: there was a magenta mask tucked neatly underneath Thomas’ crumpled grey sweatshirt.

 _Ah,_ thought James wryly, staring at it. _So, not the Marquis, then._

He gently tugged one edge of it and pulled it out. “Thomas,” he called gently. 

“Hmm? What is it, Jemmy?” came Thomas’ voice as he returned to the room. He’d taken to calling him that. _Jemmy._ James couldn’t deny that it warmed his heart. 

Wordlessly, James held up the mask, silently praying that this wouldn’t cause a rift in their friendship. Thomas stopped dead when he saw it, and James instantly regretted. . . this. 

“Let me explain,” Thomas started. 

“Thomas. . .” James began weakly. “I knew.”

This brought his friend up short. “I. . . you did?”

“You weren’t exactly inconspicuous about it,” James pointed out dryly. 

Thomas backed away quickly. “I can. . . I can leave. We can just. . . you can pretend we didn’t meet. I lied to you, I don’t—”

“What?” said James, confused. “No, _don’t_. You’re my friend. I’m not going to abandon you because you didn’t tell me you’re a supervillain and blow up buildings in your free time for fun.”

He paused. _Wow. That sounded a whole lot better in my head._

Thomas’ beam lit up the room like the summer sun. 

  

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

_Unknown Number texted you on Thursday at 2:31 pm_

 

Unknown Number: I suggest that you move to the left a little

 

Dolley: ??? who is this???

 

Unknown Number: see the fire hydrant next to you?

 

Unknown Number: it’s going to explode in about 30 secs

 

Dolley: who the hell are you and how the hell how do you know where i am

 

Dolley: also how do you know it’s going to explode?

 

Dolley: who are you, the arsonist?

 

Unknown Number: yes 

 

Unknown Number: now move, goddamnit

 

Dolley: why are you telling me this?

 

The Arsonist: five

 

The Arsonist: four

 

The Arsonist: three

 

The Arsonist: two

 

The Arsonist: one

 

Dolley: sdlony erairametadlliw iseiressIHT NIRETAL

 

Dolley: what the FRICK

 

The Arsonist: there’s a reason why i told you to move

 

Dolley: how do you even have this number

 

Dolley: did you read my mind or something?

 

Dolley: nvm, I get the feeling I don’t want to know

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

Adrienne had little experience with cities, considering her French-countryside upbringing. She had absolutely _no_ experience with super-habited cities. The Dauphin and Mariposa only showed up to fight around every two months in Paris, and her family only visited there once a year or so. 

That was probably why she nearly fainted when the Arsonist made one of his frequent attacks and she was _right there._  

Icarus was on the scene almost instantly, distracting illusions surrounding him, and it soon escalated into a full-blown battle between them—in the middle of Times Square. Fireballs flurried through the air like hail, and they were darting around each other amidst the smoke and chaos. 

Adrienne had taken refuge behind a pile of rubble and was now peeking wide-eyed at the two supers, nonplussed that everyone else seemed so calm about the situation. One kid was even filming them, leaning casually against a wall and zooming in on Icarus’s gold mask.  

“ _Mon dieu._ What on earth is wrong with this place?” Adrienne muttered to herself. 

The kid videotaping seemed to hear, because he ducked through the square to crouch behind the pile of rubble next to Adrienne. “You’re new here, huh?”

“I moved here last week,” Adrienne responded, eyes still glued to the fight. 

“You’re acting like you’ve never been witness to an attack by a flame-throwing supervillain before,” said the kid with a grin. “You get used to it, though. This happens like every other week, practically.”

Gaping at him, dumbfounded, Adrienne managed to get out weakly, “How on earth is the city intact?”

“No idea,” answered the kid merrily, swiveling his phone to follow the Arsonist and Icarus. He held out his free hand for Adrienne to shake. “James Madison. I run the hero watch on Twitter.”

“Adrienne de Noailles,” Adrienne replied, taking it, her gaze sweeping over the large chunks of the brick ground that had been yanked out and the smoldering ashes that were the residue of the Arsonist’s explosions. “Does, ah, this”—Adrienne gestured around herself to indicate the supers’ battle— “happen often?”

“Yeah, I mean like, traffic jam, broken stoplight, supervillain attack—same difference, really.”

Adrienne shook her head in mingled bafflement and amusement, watching as Icarus threw a punch at the Arsonist, who dodged it nimbly, teleported with a _crack_ to behind the hero, and set the bricks around them on fire with a flick of his hand. James swiped at the screen to zoom in and said, “I can give you my phone number if you want, we can rant together about the crazy supers of the city. Or you could DM me on Twitter.”

Laughing, Adrienne nodded in acceptance. She got the impression that this would turn out to be a rather interesting, if unconventional, friendship. 

She had seriously _no idea._

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

_Chat: where we plan the destruction of nyc_

 

arsonist: so on a scale from 1 to voldemort how crazy r we all 

 

Wraith: It’s eleven at night, Thomas. 

 

arsonist: and?

 

Wraith: Well. . .

 

arsonist: exactly

 

arsonist: anyway what do u think

 

Cataclysm: like on hawk moth's level

 

arsonist: what?

 

Cataclysm: you know, from miraculous ladybug?

 

arsonist: whaaaat?

 

Wraith: @Cataclysm Ohhhh, your supervillain name makes so much more sense now. . . 

 

arsonist: ... okay ... so ... anyway, laf’s at like Anakin skywalker’s level

 

the marquis: Aaron is like a … what is the word. . . dementor

 

Cataclysm: lol yeah the veil

 

the marquis: also the ability to, how you say, freak everyone out by simply existing

 

Cataclysm: It’s always the #quietones

 

arsonist: #StopUsingHashtags

 

Wraith: #ShutUpYouHypocrites

 

the marquis: remember when we actually used this chat for our evil schemes to destroy the city?

 

arsonist: evil schemes what evil schemes idk what ur talking about

 

Wraith: I said s h u t   u p!

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

The Arsonist texted you on Friday at 9:03 am

 

The Arsonist: I frickin’ hate my coworkers

 

Dolley: by coworkers I assume you mean ur fellow supervillains

 

Dolley: also why r u even texting me u could dump your problems on anyone else

 

The Arsonist: 1) that is in fact who I mean 2) bc I can

 

Dolley: I’m not the best therapist, but do you want to tell me what they did?

 

The Arsonist: it’s laf

 

The Arsonist: He keeps on messing stuff up like I’ll be in the middle of a harmless attack and then he’ll show up and start throwing ice cannons and wind and stuff

 

Dolley: Ice and wind. So this ‘laf’ is the marquis?

 

Dolley: also. Harmless?

 

The Arsonist: fairly harmless anyway

 

The Arsonist: but that’s not the point

 

Dolley: what even is the point

 

The Arsonist: …

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

“You know, sometimes I feel sorry for them,” remarked Kitty, the girl who shared most of her shifts with Maria, from where she sat at the counter. Customers were sparse right now, so they were both spending most of their time shaping ceramics. 

Not that Maria had much time in the first place. 

Yes, it was faintly easier now that school was. . . well, not quite over, more like Thomas-did-something-a-little-mentally-deranged-again-and-now-they-were-out-for-summer-vacation-early, but that didn’t make it much easier for her to balance out the rest of her schedule. She had to be Cataclysm, currently the city’s only female supervillain and probably the most notorious out of the three—out of the _four_ of them all, and be regular old Maria Lewis, trying to keep some semblance of a social life and working part-time in a ceramic store at the same time. Between all of it, she was hard-pressed to find a moment to herself. 

Maria tore her gaze from a feather-shaped cloud and flaked a fragment of soft clay from the rim of her coil pot. “Who?” she said absentmindedly, covering her phone—which had just vibrated several times from her group chat with Thomas, Aaron, and Laf—to hide it from her. 

Kitty gestured toward the television situated on the wall, where some rather grainy footage of Laf and Thomas—in costume, obviously—fighting Icarus from earlier that morning was showing. “ _Them_ ,” she replied laconically. 

“Do you think, if you tried really hard,” snarked Maria, feeling a burst of annoyance, “you could be just the slightest more cryptic? You’re being far too specific right now.” 

Flicking a shard of hardened white clay at her, Kitty rolled her eyes. “I meant the villains.”

Ice plummeted into Maria’s stomach and slithered uncomfortably around, like someone had upended a basket of prodigiously cold snakes down her throat. “What?” 

“I know, I know, it sounds weird,” sighed Kitty, oblivious to Maria’s internal panic. “Don’t you ever wonder _why_ they do things like destroy roads and kidnap people? _Especially_ the Arsonist?”

Maria swallowed a small, strangled noise in the back of her throat; the latter was one-hundred percent all her. Thomas was much too flamboyant to do that sort of trivial, boring thing, Aaron had some kind of moral objection, and Laf just couldn’t be bothered. Abductions were in her job description and hers alone. 

_Don’t regret don’tregretdon’tregret._

Evidently taking her guilt-ridden silence as perplexity, Kitty persisted, “ _Have_ you?”

“Just sanity, probably,” tried Maria, recovering herself quickly. “Or lack thereof, I suppose.”

“Well, maybe,” said Kitty, looking disappointed. “But I think you have to be pretty sane in order to have a legitimately loquacious argument about _whiskey taxes_ in the _eighteenth century_ that actually makes sense. Oxymoron if you ask me, but the Arsonist pulled it off last Monday.”

“He was arguing with _Icarus_. Literally _anyone_ can have an argument with Icarus, he's probably the most disputatious person on the planet,” Maria pointed out, frowning as she prodded at a particularly stubborn ring of clay that refused to stick to her pot. 

“He—” began Kitty, but was cut off by the sharp ‘ding’ of the kiln finishing its load. She set down her tile plate and shoved back her seat, making a long screeching sound, then got up and hurriedly opened the lid. Exhaling, Maria turned her attention back to the glittering stretch of blue, now tinted with pale pinks and vibrant oranges, as her friend blew ash off of the newly fired pottery. 

“He’s sane, for sure,” Kitty went on softly from behind her, shutting the kiln. “ _Something_ had to happen to him to make him do all this. Must have been bad. Can you imagine?”

“No,” answered Maria, feeling hollow. 

It wasn’t a lie, not really.

You don’t need to imagine what you already know.

**Author's Note:**

> Question. Like I said, I have around five more installments of this AU finished already, just not posted. So far, I’ve been updating once a week, on Fridays/Saturdays. Would you prefer twice a week, or is it okay the way it is?


End file.
